


Little Paper Stars

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-03
Updated: 2005-12-03
Packaged: 2019-01-19 18:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12415797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: The seventh had been the carefree action of opening the door to see who was knocking...





	Little Paper Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**_A/N: Drabble type thing. Post-HPB. Read and review, loo-hoos!_ **

**_-h_ **

Little Paper Stars

Her hands worked gracefully, the fingers gently tucking and tugging, the wrists bending and twisting and rolling back, the thumbs gently steadying and pressing and curving gracefully into the palm. The rhythm was steady, synchronized, experienced. Like the soft-slippered feet of a slender ballerina.

_Over, under, tug, pull-- Shift to the right-- Over, under, tug, pull-- Shift to the right._

The dim light from the little fire in the grate flickered over the old wooden table and danced across her hands and turned the large glass jar beside her into the eluding waters of a lonesome stream lit by moonlight and dimming hope. It rippled across the newspaper like a lone water bug on a still pond and jumbled the words there into ripples and made them dance and evade and hop over one another.

_Three more…Saturday past…fire. Aurors arrived shortly…destroyed…Mr. and Mrs. Dooley and their daughter Avery…small town pureblood family…unsafe to…Ministry says…shock_

Her head is bent over her hands as she watches their graceful dance around the lost art-form between them and the firelight caresses her hair and makes it wink and shine and whisper secrets to the dozing figures in the frames on the mantle piece. A log in the fire crumbles under the constant barrage of heat and the fire hisses and simmers and flashes light into the small room and the table and the old ticking clock in the corner with its tarnished hands and dusty pendulum and cobwebbed corners.

_Over, under, tug, pull-- Shift to the right-- Over, under, tug, pull-- Shift to the right._

Her rhythm slows and changes and her fingertips pinch instead of pull and press instead of tuck and place instead of shift. Her palm flattens over the table and the pads of her fingers and thumbs and the undersides of her knuckles press against rough wood. An indentation is made in the center of her palm and when she lifts her hand the origami star is still stuck there.

She lifts the paper figure from her palm and presses her lips to the outline left there as she drops the star into the jar beside her. It falls almost gracefully through the rippling light inside the jar and lands in a bed of its fellows, settling between them comfortably and making their number increase to a handful. She watches them dance in the water-light for a while before turning back to her table and smoothing a long strip of white paper with the edges of her fingernails. She lifts her quill from its inkwell and places its tip on the parchment so she can curl the ink into letters and words and names.

_Avery Dooley- age 12_

Her hands move in their practiced motions and her fingertips tug and tuck and the firelight dances and turns the jar into water and makes her hair whisper so many secrets.

The first had been her mother. The second Cedric Diggory and the third Sirius Black. The fourth was Dumbledore and the fifth her childhood and the sixth the warm gesture of inviting friends over for tea.

The seventh was the carefree action of opening the door to see who was knocking.

They called her loony but that was because she understood. That was because she had the answers to those unanswered questions. That was because she knew that meaning came in the form of a handful of little paper stars.

**_A/N: As you might have guessed, the “she”� in this is intended to be Luna. I gave her this little quirk because I figure that even the most dreamy of us know grief and find ways to wade through it._ **

**__**

**_Tell me what you think!_ **


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